ECOT not only online school that owes money over enrollment issues

The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow by far owes the most, but it is not the only Ohio online charter school being told to repay state money because of problems with verifying enrollment.

The state is deducting $60 million over 24 months from ECOT, after the Department of Education determined that the school verified only 6,313 full-time students, not the 15,322 students for whom it was paid during the 2015-16 school year.

According to the department, eight other online charter schools also face repayments, and a few others have shut down. One school, TRECA Digital Academy, recently reached a tentative settlement to repay $5 million, to be deducted over five years.

TRECA, with about 1,950 students, was told by the department that its student participation was "inconsistently documented" and in no student sample did active participation match the log-in minutes.

Last year was the first time the Department of Education asked several online schools to verify enrollment using mostly students' log-in durations.

“Like many e-schools … we use several different systems, and gathering the data from those systems can be complex,” said Adam Clark, executive director of TRECA, a dropout recovery school that has operated for 15 years. “The systems for tracking that information to the detail that is now expected we did not have in place.”

ECOT, which lost its administrative appeal and has lost multiple court rulings, has made similar arguments about why it struggled to show students were getting the 920 hours of learning required by the state.

TRECA also had appealed the Department of Education’s request to repay about 38 percent of its funding, but agreed to settle.

“We worked through that with the department to make sure we were able to produce every bit of documentation we had access to,” Clark said. “We’re ready to move forward. Under the settlement terms, we could move forward with the least amount of impact on the ability to serve our students.”

The Department of Education also reached a smaller settlement with the Massillon Digital Academy, run by Massillon City Schools. It repaid $12,630, which was deducted from the school’s July payment.

A number of other e-schools have appealed the department’s findings that they owe money to the state. Appeals are heard by a hearing officer, who makes a recommendation to the state Board of Education.

The Reynoldsburg-based Virtual Community School, which was sponsored by the Reynoldsburg Schools before it was recently taken over by the state, said its appeals have been denied and Superintendent Jeff Nelson has posted on the school's website that it will not open this month. The school was ordered to repay millions of dollars after being unable to verify two-thirds of its enrollment from 2015-16. The school is suspending operations pending a financial investigation.

"To continue to operate on only partial student funding and also return funds to the state, VCS would be forced to greatly reduce services to you: our students," Nelson wrote. "This would have a significant impact on our ability to continue acting out our mission."

Akron Digital Academy is awaiting a decision from the state hearing officer. Appeals are ongoing for Buckeye Online School for Success, Findlay Digital Academy, and Quaker Digital Academy.

Provost Academy, whose trouble with enrollment policies and data in 2015 spurred the Department of Education to take a more aggressive look at e-school enrollment, closed at the end of the 2016-17 school year. The school paid back the state in full, said Education Department spokeswoman Brittany Halpin.

Marion Digital Academy also closed at the end of last school year, and Southwest Licking Digital Academy, which owes the state $140,500 for unverified enrollment, closed before the start of the past school year.

A number of e-schools, including ECOT, are awaiting the final results of new attendance audits this year. Halpin said she could not comment on whether schools were doing better this time.

Clark said he expects that TRECA did better.

“We took a number of steps to better detail and keep record of the types of learning opportunities the state is now expecting,” he said.

jsiegel@dispatch.com

@phrontpage

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